


Centuries to Claim

by louciferish



Series: Rebels and Consorts [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Class Differences, Drinking, F/F, Primadonna Zine, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18395336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: When Mila buckles on her guard's doublet and sword belt to patrol the castle following the royal wedding, she knows there will be trouble.She expects drunks. She expects drama. She does not expect a fine lady with bright violet eyes to practically fall into her lap.





	Centuries to Claim

**Author's Note:**

> Although this takes place in the same universe as Vanity Fairgrounds and Lyrics on Postcards, the other two are not required for this one to make sense. Sara appeared only briefly in VF, and this is Mila's first appearance within this series, so it stands alone.

Weddings are chaos, and royal weddings doubly so. 

Mila has to steel herself for battle when she begins her guard shift, buckling her doublet and sword on securely and giving herself a thorough pat-down for loose threads and handholds. She piles her red hair on top of her head and considers whether to wear her helm, but discards it on a chair in the end. 

The royal family of Nikiv is known to throw stellar parties, and Crown Prince Victor has an extra layer of reputation on top of that. His late-in-life alliance with the young prince from Katsu is bound to be an event to remember—for those lucky few who remember it at all—and the drunks will respond better to a real human face than an impersonal helmet. Satisfied, she sets out to patrol the halls.

The night starts off calm enough, but of course the people departing the wedding before the lamps are lit are naturally a more responsible group.

No, it’s the later crowds she’ll need to keep an eye on.

She makes a grand total of six passes through the halls of the castle without incident. With each patrol, the sunlight outside dims a bit more, and servants emerge to light the lamps and candles lining the hallway. Sometimes, the great doors to the ballroom swing out, spilling light and laughter and music into her path, only to snap shut, cutting her off before she can get a good look inside. 

Mila’s never been the type to daydream about gowns and balls and dancing, but it _does_ sound fun in there. It might be nice, someday, to experience one of these without having to patrol the castle or stand guard outside the doors.

By her seventh turn, it’s well past the dinner hour and full dark outside, but knowing the Nikiforovs the party should continue for another few hours at least. With that in mind, she’s not prepared when the double doors are thrown open right beside her and a dark-haired woman stumbles out alone.

The lady staggers forward as the doors close behind her, sealing away the happy sounds within, and catches herself on the stone wall. Mila’s seen many a fine lady—and some not so fine ones—the worse for wear, and this one is _drunk_.

The woman rights herself, and the lace trim on the sleeves of her sky-blue gown catches and pulls on the rough stone of the wall. She takes a few steps down the hall, away from Mila, then stops, turns around, and walks right back. She looks straight through Mila as she scans the hall, a pout of indignation clear on her face. Mila knows that look— _how dare the world be confusing._

“My lady?” Mila steps forward, careful, as one might approach a skittish horse. “Can I help you find something?”

The woman blinks, as if she truly hadn’t seen Mila standing right there. “My room,” she says.

“Don’t worry.” Mila steps forward again, now that she knows the woman won’t scream. “I’ll get you there.”

When Mila puts her arm out to offer escort, the lady beams, and Mila has to lock her knees to stop from staggering herself. The woman’s smile is beautiful, but up close her eyes are even more incredible—a deep shade of violet like Mila’s never seen before. With her warm skin and dark hair, Mila hadn’t thought the woman was from this part of Nikiv to begin with, but the eyes make her origin explicit.

Only the Crispino line is known to produce purple eyes. Given that the lady isn’t much older than herself, Mila knows she must be escorting Lady Sara. 

Why is Lady Sara Crispino drunk so early in the evening? And where is her “inseparable” brother? Mila scans the hall quickly, as if she may have missed a _second_ person with purple eyes wandering about, but the passage is empty.

Well, nothing to be done for it. Mila’s job is to keep the guests out of trouble, and there’s no doubt that Lady Sara would find her way to trouble if left alone.

Arms firmly entwined, Mila leads the noblewoman down the hallway, dark and silent but for the click of their shoes on the stone.

“Where are we going?” Sara’s voice startles her, breaking through the peace of the evening as she lists to the side, leaning into Mila’s shoulder. 

“We need to find your room, remember?” Sara nods solemnly, then goes quiet again. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Most of the wedding guests have been put up in the same wing of the castle, in a single hall, for exactly this reason. 

In the guest wing, Mila can hear voices here and there—guests still talking and laughing and enjoying one another behind the closed doors of their rooms. Through one door comes the distinctive snorting drawl of a man snoring very soundly.

“Do any of the rooms look right to you?” Mila prompts the noblewoman leaning heavily against her, and Sara blinks away the fog in her mind, then shakes her head.

“I don’t think we were staying over here. This doesn’t look… familiar.”

Okay. _Most_ of the wedding guests were housed here, but there are a few overflow rooms in another wing. Unfortunately, that wing is on the other side of the castle, in the opposite direction from where they’ve come. 

Mila pushes aside a flash of annoyance. The lady is too drunk to blame for this. She puts on a positive face instead. “We’ll check the other rooms, then, shall we?” And she steers the woman around, back in the direction of the party.

They pass another guard along the way, and Mila gives him a nod of acknowledgement. He returns it with a pointed look at the woman clinging to her arm, and Mila has to disguise her laugh with a cough. She’s well aware she may have already bitten off more than she can chew.

The party is still in full swing within the ballroom. As the hour progresses and more guests depart, the noise through the grand doors only gets louder, encouraged no doubt by the free flow of alcohol. Mila’s arm tightens around Lady Sara’s, hoping the woman won’t suddenly decide she should return to the reception.

Instead, she leans harder into Mila, nearly tripping over the swish of her own skirts, and Mila adjusts to catch her, winding her arm around the corseted waist. It’s not _proper_ , taking this liberty, but the Lady is drunk and the hallways are empty. It’s for her own protection, and nevermind that Lady Sara is undeniably breathtaking.

She doesn’t protest the arm, at least. She doesn’t even seem to notice, her gaze focused on the ornately carved ballroom doors.

“He was going to be mine, you know,” Sara says suddenly, her words pliant on the edges. “Everyone thought he was, once.”

“Who? The Crown Prince?”

Lady Sara nods, a small frown creasing her face. “My father was certain he’d propose, but then he started courting some Duke, and…” Her grip on Mila’s doublet tightens. “My brother won’t forgive him, but Mickey doesn’t know. He doesn’t _really_ know what happened.”

She goes silent again as the reach the end of the hall and enter the other guest wing. “Doesn’t know what?” Mila prompts, too curious, but Sara’s eyes are far away, and she doesn’t respond to the question.

In the middle of the hall, Mila stops, touching Sara’s arm gently to get her attention. “Is anything familiar in this hall?”

Sara looks around them at the Nikiv family portraits on the walls, the statues and vases decorating the corners, and then shakes her head. “No,” she says. “We’re still at the wrong inn.”

Mila’s heart drops like a stone into her stomach. “Inn?”

“Yes. Ours was quaint. There were commoners staying there, you know? It wasn’t nearly this fancy.” She pouts and scrubs at her eyes, smearing the black kohl beneath them. It makes the violet in her irises stand out even more. “I’m tired.”

Damnit. The captain had told them that most of the noble guests were staying in the castle itself. _Most_ was the keyword there, though. Obviously the Crispinos, for their own reasons, had chosen not to accept the royal family’s hospitality. Ballsy.

Now what? Mila still has guard duty. She can’t simply leave the castle to take the lady back to her inn—if she could even figure out which one it is—but the woman is obviously too inebriated to be returned to the party or left to wander the halls alone. 

Quickly, she makes a stupid decision, firming her grip on the other woman’s waist. “Right this way, My Lady,” she murmurs. “I’ll get you to bed.”

The corridors are much more narrow in the staff wing, but if Lady Crispino is sober enough to note it, she doesn’t say. This is insanity. It’s by no stretch appropriate for Mila to do this, but what other option does she have? Better that Sara get to sleep off her drink somewhere safe. Better that she was found by Mila than one of the men.

Mila unlocks the door to her quarters, then holds it wide for Sara to enter. She looks out of place among Mila’s things, her satin and lace skirts filling the room. The place is only slightly more homey than a barracks. There are things Mila wants to spend her money on, and furniture isn’t on the list, but her bed is comfortable enough, and her grandmother even sent a lovely embroidered pillow to decorate with.

“This isn’t my room either,” Lady Sara says, frowning. “Where’s Mickey?”

Crap. “We had to move you to another room,” Mila lies. “He’s, uh. He’s just down the hall.”

Thank the fates, she seems to accept that, nodding, then reaches back to gather her long, dark hair over one shoulder. “Call a girl to help me out of my dress, then.”

Mila’s mouth goes dry. This is why she went into the castle guard rather than the court—to avoid exactly this type of situation. But if she can take down a man twice her size with a wooden practice staff in under ten minutes, she can probably handle some buttons.

Right?

Her fingers are a lot clumsier in this situation than she’d ever admit, but the slippery little fastenings eventually surrender to her attempts, and the back of the dress parts to reveal—thank god—a few more layers beneath. When the gown thwumps to the floor at their feet, Mila gathers it up. It’s far finer stuff than anything she owns, and it almost feels like contamination to hang it in her own wardrobe, but something this nice can’t just be left lying across a chair or crumpled on the castle floors. 

When she finishes packing the dress away, she turns to find that Sara has already skimmed out of her petticoat and is down to her linen underdress. Spotty linen underthings: the great equalizer. Without the yards of delicate satin and spiderweb lace, Sara could be any maid from the kitchens crawling across Mila’s bed. 

She’s not, though. She slips beneath the covers and then looks at Mila again, frowning, probably wondering what the hell Mila is doing still lingering in what she believes is _her_ rented room. 

“Uh, good night,” Mila mutters, backing away until she feels the wooden door at her back. “Sleep well, m’lady.” She grabs her helm from the chair and escapes, back out into the hallway, then leans on the door again from the other side.

It’s still a problem. She’s just left a confused noblewoman in her own quarters, and there are sure to be questions when the lady wakes up, but, well, that’s a problem for tomorrow Mila. Now, she can hear the echoes of drunken shouts and giggles bouncing off the arched ceilings as more wedding guests spill out into the hallways. 

She’s still got a guard shift to finish tonight.

-

Many hours, two fights, and four public indecency incidents later, Mila finally gets permission from her commander to call it a night. In the end, she thinks it was a good shift—no one got seriously hurt among the guard or the guests, and she’s pretty sure they’re all going to get hazard pay for the portion of the morning where the Crown Prince climbed onto the roof stark naked. Thank god the King and Queen had retired to their rooms by that point.

By the time Mila actually stumbles into her own hallway, the castle is bustling with fresh-faced staff who’ve just started their day. They smile and nod to Mila as they push past her, extinguishing the last few guttering candles to make space for the sun. Mila nods in return, but her face is too heavy to manage a smile. She’s consumed with longing for one thing—her bed— and she’s already fumbling open the fastenings on her uniform coat before she even reaches the door of her room.

When she gets there, she sags in relief, letting the door swing open slowly beneath her sluggish weight. She slips inside and drops her doublet straight onto the floor, followed by her belt, then looks up.

A pillow is pointing a sword at her throat.

Mila blinks and shakes her head. She’s not hallucinating. One of the large pillows from her bed appears to be standing nearby, pointing her second-best practice rapier directly at her neck.

The top of a dark head slowly appears over the pillow’s edge, then a pair of unmistakable violet eyes, and it all comes flooding back. The events of early last night already feel like they happened a week ago. Mila raises her hands to show she’s unarmed. 

“Sorry if I startled you, My Lady,” she says. “But I’m glad to see you up and about already.”

Sara winces a little, a clear signal that the carousing last night didn’t leave her wholly untouched, but aside from that she seems in good health. Her dark hair is tangled and mussed, and yesterday’s cosmetics are smeared along the corners of her eyes, but she’s standing straight, no longer listing from side to side. “Who are you?” She hisses, just above a whisper. “Where am I? Where’s Mickey? Where are _my clothes_?”

Mila reaches up, carefully telegraphing the movement so as not to startle the other woman. The practice sword is too dull to do much damage, but it’s still a viable weapon. Her fingers find the clasp beneath her chin, and she lifts off her helmet, shaking out her hair.

As soon as Mila’s face is revealed, the point of the sword droops. “Oh,” says Sara, eyes wide as she looks Mila over from top to toe. “Oh,” she repeats, more faintly, stepping back to sit down on the bed.

Mila drops her helmet into the chair. “How much of last night do you remember?” Sara only shakes her head, and Mila steps past her to open the wardrobe. While Mila paws through the rack, Sara slowly lets the modesty pillow fall away from her body, then places it back on the bed behind her, straightening the sheet absently.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t leave my post,” Mila says, pulling Sara’s party dress from the wardrobe. “But you weren’t in any fit state to tell me where you were actually staying anyway. I thought it would be better to bring you here than risk leaving you on your own.”

“No, that’s… That makes sense,” Sara says. “Thank you.” She looks a little overwhelmed, or maybe just tired. When Mila passes her the gown, she holds her arms out to accept it, but then only clutches it tightly to her chest, staring through Mila at the wall.

Well, Mila can’t blame her for being confused. It was quite the night, and for some of them it’s still not over. Unashamed, Mila takes the opportunity to begin stripping off the rest of her uniform to ready herself for bed. 

“So,” Sara says suddenly. Mila turns to find her looking away, facing the door with a faint flush coloring her cheeks as she tucks her hair back behind her ear. “I don’t remember much, really. I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble.”

“No, m’lady. We took a walk, and then I brought you here for a rest. And your gown is lovely, but didn’t seem to be very good sleepwear.” Mila sits on the bed beside her, maintaining a careful distance between them as she unlaces her boots. 

“So, nothing inappropriate happened at all?”

“No, m’lady,” Mila sighs. 

“Would you… would you like it to?”

Mila looks up from kicking off her shoe, uncertain she really heard that question. “Excuse me?” 

Sara’s face is flushed, her hands slowly twisting the satin skirts of her party dress as she turns to meet Mila’s eyes. “You heard me perfectly well,” she says, with a little snap in her tone that makes Mila want to sit up straighter. “Would you?”

Mila’s pretty sure she was exhausted a moment ago, but that’s not important anymore. Lost for words, she pulls Sara’s hand from the fabric and raises it to her lips, closing her eyes as she drops a kiss into the center of her palm. Sara’s eyelids flutter, and she gives Mila a sultry look through dark lashes as she bites her lip. 

Mila thought the party was over, but it seems it hasn’t ended just yet.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the YOI Primadonna zine, which was an open charity zine focused on the ladies of the YOI universe, with all proceeds going toward breast cancer research. If you enjoy the works in this collection, but didn't get a chance to buy the zine while it was on sale, please consider donating to the [Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation](https://www.drsusanloveresearch.org/).


End file.
